Sentinel Subsea has created a new well integrity monitoring system, has had its technology tipped to become ubiquitous within the global decommissioning industry.
Long-term well integrity verification specialist, Sentinel Subsea – which is being supported to accelerate its commercialization by the Scottish Enterprise High Growth Ventures team – also announced it is working toward its first offshore field trials with a large independent U.K. operator.
Taking place during Q2 2019, the trials will see deployment of the technology in the North Sea. Passively monitoring the subsea environment around a suspended or abandoned well for over 10 years without the requirement for intervention, its early detection of leaks aims to mitigate the potential environmental consequences of long-term issues following well plug and abandonment (P&A) activity.
Sentinel Chief Executive Neil Gordon explained, “The long-term integrity of suspended or abandoned well barriers is a critical component of the late life and decommissioning process. With well P&A activity representing a large proportion of North Sea decommissioning activity, the environmental and financial ramifications of a barrier failure cannot be underestimated. It is vital that the industry is able to demonstrate good environmental stewardship to all stakeholders and that is where Sentinel Subsea aims to help.
“In providing an alert to well barrier failure, our solution provides the confidence for industry to adopt innovative decommissioning techniques that have the potential to make a huge contribution to the Oil and Gas Authority’s 35 percent cost reduction target. The early-detection offered by our technology also has the potential to significantly lower clear-up costs.”
Sentinel Subsea was born out of the city’s Grey Matters Program, developed by Scottish Enterprise and delivered in partnership with Elevator. The program was established to drive entrepreneurship in Scotland’s energy sector by supporting experienced executives to develop ideas, form teams and create new start-up, high-growth potential companies.